


constancy

by humanveil



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: hoggywartyxmas, Gen, PoA era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 18:48:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13324302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/humanveil/pseuds/humanveil
Summary: Constancy: (n.) English. The quality of being faithful and dependable; the quality of being enduring and unchanging.Minerva sends him many things over the years. As he prepares to leave for a third time, Remus reflects.





	constancy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tjs_whatnot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjs_whatnot/gifts).



> Written for the 2017 Hoggywarty Xmas Exchange. Originally posted [here](https://hoggywartyxmas.livejournal.com/93494.html).

The box is ragged, cool under his palms, the wood littered with dips, dents, remnants of old memories, of past times, both better and worse. His nail catches on the edge, a quick, quiet hiss escaping before he can stop it. His hands, they’re injured; the skin covered with cuts and bruises, with long scratches and sore spots, irritations under the fingertips, where the claws would sit.

_The wolf’s fun. The man’s burden._

He reaches for the clasps, flicks them open. The lid is pulled up, the mix of letters and cards and scraps of parchment a familiar sight. These things, he prefers to pack them by hand. Magic can be volatile, even when the words are sweetly whispered—or perhaps, especially then—and Remus knows better than to take the risk. The letters, they’re too precious. Mean too much.

He’d got another one, this year, even though they’d seen each other the day of.  _Tradition_ , Minerva had said, lips tipped in a smirk, in a shadow of a joke, and Remus had had no choice but to take it. He’d gone out the next day, down to Hogsmeade, and got her one himself. Discounted, because Christmas was over by then, but she’d appreciated it all the same.

Now, he reaches into the box. He ought not to, knows that time is of the essence if he wants to leave before the worst of it starts, but nostalgia is a force to be reckoned with; is enough to make a sane man mad, to make him act in ways he normally wouldn’t.

The parchment is rough beneath his hands, the paper crinkling under his touch. He runs his fingers across it, listens to the scrape, to the scratch. It’s a familiar sound, the rustling. One Remus finds comforting, just as most of the words within are.

He picks at random, and the first comes from 1984.  _I hope you’re well_ , it says.  _We’ve not seen you in a while..._

Remus drops it, lets it disappear into the sea of others. He looks for something happier, something hopeful, something that doesn’t remind him of those years, those lost years, where his only friend was solitude, was the walls of his dingy little flat, was the cat that lived down the hall, the little grey beast that’d come looking for scraps as if he had any to give. He rifles through, picks another out at random. This one  _is_  happier, if only a bit. A card, not a letter. Brightly coloured and moving, the cover painted in a gentle blue, a phoenix sporting a Christmas hat front and centre. The edges of this one are worn, the light tears evidence of how much he’s done this, of how often.

 _Get well_ , it reads, and Remus feels a flicker of a smile fall across his face. He remembers this one, remembers it well. Fourth year. The very first she’d ever sent. He’d woken in the Hospital Wing on Christmas morning, his bedside adorned in box upon box of chocolate frogs, the card atop the chaos. James and Sirius had both whined for days, their surprise obvious as they’d sat at his bedside, fingers sticky with melted chocolate and reaching for Remus’ prized possession with a  _we just want to look, Moony. We’re not going to ruin it._

Remus had let them, because of course he bloody had. Resolve was useless when they were looking at him like  _that_ , all smiles and laughs and teasing, and Remus had been too tired to argue, anyway. Sirius had snatched it from him, and James had all but climbed across his lap to get a better look. They’d been eager, then, Remus recalls. Boyish. Filled with love and laughter; with adolescence.

 _Why you_ , they’d both said.  _I’m her favourite._

Remus had laughed then, had snorted in the face of their playful jealousy, and he grins now, too. Sirius had been deeply hurt; mostly for show, but then, it was generally the same thing with him. Minerva had sent four out the next year, one for each of them. A glittery sky and a witch on a broom, the words  _Happy Holidays_  spelled out in almost unintelligible cursive, the letters shooting from a wand like sparks. Identical, lest Sirius continue on with his complaints of  _favouritism._

Remus plucks it out, now, and it’s just as worn as the first. He holds it in his hand, trails his thumb over the edge—softer than it used to be, the sharp paper eroded back to something gentle. Delicate. The note inside is generic, but then, they had been at first.

He’d sent one back, that year, and it’d set off a back and forth that carried on well into his adulthood. Not once had they ever spoken a word of it, but every year, without fail, Remus would wake on Christmas to an owl at his window, to the distinct  _tap tap tap._ Cards had turned to letters, and years to months, and Remus had found himself looking forward to it, to their exchanges. He has very little understanding of the word constancy, but as he trails his finger over letters, over years and years’ worth of correspondence, he supposes that this is as close to it as he ever came.

“You kept them.”

Remus starts at the sound of a voice, hadn’t heard someone walk up the stairs. Placing the card back in the box, he turns, smiles, his head tipped in a greeting. Minerva comes to stand beside him, and Remus fiddles with the box’s lid, the pressure of his fingers light where they meet the wood. He feels embarrassed, almost, at getting caught; feels the urge to let the lid shut and pretend he’d never been looking at all.

He doesn’t. There’s no point, now, not when she’s already seen it. His fingers move nervously, the tips tapping against the glossy, light brown wood as he looks at her. She’s staring back at him, traces of amusement in the lines of her face. There’s something knowing there, Remus thinks. Something pointed.

“I keep mine, too,” she says. “Memories.”

“Reminders,” Remus corrects softly.

He lets his box shut, the loud snap of wood almost drowning his quiet voice. Turning properly, he leans against the bench, curls his arms against his chest. Defensive, already.

“You’re leaving,” Minerva says, and it’s definitely not a question, but Remus sighs, offers an answer anyway.

“I can hardly stay,” he tells her, and there’s an argument at the tip of her tongue. He can see it, the small frown, the light furrow of her brow. It’s a familiar enough expression. “If it were to happen again—”

“It wouldn’t.”

“You don’t know that,” he says. He sighs again, sighs for what must be the millionth time that day. The sound is soft, tired, resigned. “With everything that’s happen...” He trails off, shakes his head.

There’s a light touch at his elbow, her hand resting at his forearm. Remus looks down, an inexplicable emotion crawling its way up his throat at the sight of her fingers curled around his arm. “You’ve been incredibly kind to me,” he says, “and I really do appreciate it, but… I can’t.”

When he looks up to meet her gaze, Minerva’s eyes are kind, a resigned melancholy simmering in the depths. “Don’t disappear,” she tells him quietly, and Remus’ mouth twitches as if to smile, so quick anyone could miss it.

“I never disappear,” he says, and as he sees her gaze flick to his box of letters, Remus knows she understands what he means.


End file.
